When I arrived at the Kan-Ed site, I started playing around with NetTrekker. It is awesome. I took a “two birds, one stone” approach and searched for information for my Unit plan for my Middle Level Education class. I am doing a unit on mythology from different ancient cultures (Greek, Egyptian etc…) to tie with the Social Studies standards for 6th grade. When I searched Greek mythology, so many excellent resources came up. After deciphering the “readability code” I was able to instantly judge whether this would be appropriate for a 6th grade class. It was great to be able to see what was “teacher approved and “student approved.” It helped me sort through all the resources. I have already bookmarked some resources and will definitely be back to explore even more.
I then moved to Thinkfinity, and I repeated my same search. It brought up equally interesting results. I enjoyed how this website gave you entire lesson plans/ unit plans. I will definitely be able to incorporate these into my unit plans for school and when I am really teaching. This is a great resource for any looking for ideas for a lesson or help mapping out an entire unit.
Thinkfinity also had great professional development ideas broken down by grade level. I like how it didn’t lump “high school” all together. It had 9, 10, 11 and 12th grade. Sure, there is a lot of overlap, but Freshman and Seniors need different academic challenges and lessons. It has advice on everything from how to figure out what your students are really interested in to explanations of how online and print readings differ. Many of the resources will be helpful to new teachers looking for effective ways to talk to students.
There are so many great resources available on Kan-Ed. I don’t have time to look at all of them yet. But the website is definitely worth a visit.
Showing posts with label Middle School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle School. Show all posts
3.07.2011
2.27.2011
Podcast Reflection #8
Tech Chick Tips: TVEA 2011 part 1
This podcast talked about a ton of useful resources the Tech Chicks learned about at a conference they attended. They were all really interesting, but not many of them were for Secondary kids or about English. However, I know many people will find them useful. They talked about several Google tools. I thought both were perfect for classrooms. The first is Google Art. It lets you tour many museums across the world. This would be great for schools that have cut their field trip money. It allows you to pretend like you are walking around the museum, instead of simply looking at different pieces of art. The program will then show you related pieces.
I called my sister the moment I heard about Google Body. She is in currently in anatomy and I knew how help this way to view muscular and skeletal systems would be to her, especially because she is considering going into medical fields. Some students are lucky enough to go on a Cadaver Field trip, but even at my very affluent high school, spaces were limited. So if a school can’t send all of their students to study cadavers, this would be perfect. (It’s also great for slightly squeamish students, like me. I can handle digital information, not real bodies!)
I am also very interested in the concept of video conferencing. But I have no idea how to set it up (or how I will use it yet—but that will come when I have a classroom and unit plans) Whirlidurb seems like a great place to start for Middle Level students. This program sets up a videoconference exactly for the students needs in the classroom. This is an excellent resource for experiential learning. Students will engage with the people they conference with and can learn from some one besides the teacher, which is refreshing to both students and teachers. They also help classes find all the resources necessary to do video conferencing. Sometimes, figuring out what you need is the hardest part. The company will schedule your conference and make sure you have everything necessary for the conference to move smoothly.
The most interesting thing they mentioned was Toontastic. It is an iPad application that allows students to make a video that tells a story. It sound so interesting because the emphasis is setting up a story with all the right elements, exposition, climax etc… Students can use their creativity to draw characters and settings (or pick them if they aren’t artistically inclined) and animate them by dragging them across the screen. The app has the student record the story while they are moving the character. This can be a great way to teach students how to build a story and could be used as a way to test if students read a novel—can they summarize the plot in the video? If my school has access to iPads, I would love to use this.
This podcast talked about a ton of useful resources the Tech Chicks learned about at a conference they attended. They were all really interesting, but not many of them were for Secondary kids or about English. However, I know many people will find them useful. They talked about several Google tools. I thought both were perfect for classrooms. The first is Google Art. It lets you tour many museums across the world. This would be great for schools that have cut their field trip money. It allows you to pretend like you are walking around the museum, instead of simply looking at different pieces of art. The program will then show you related pieces.
I called my sister the moment I heard about Google Body. She is in currently in anatomy and I knew how help this way to view muscular and skeletal systems would be to her, especially because she is considering going into medical fields. Some students are lucky enough to go on a Cadaver Field trip, but even at my very affluent high school, spaces were limited. So if a school can’t send all of their students to study cadavers, this would be perfect. (It’s also great for slightly squeamish students, like me. I can handle digital information, not real bodies!)
I am also very interested in the concept of video conferencing. But I have no idea how to set it up (or how I will use it yet—but that will come when I have a classroom and unit plans) Whirlidurb seems like a great place to start for Middle Level students. This program sets up a videoconference exactly for the students needs in the classroom. This is an excellent resource for experiential learning. Students will engage with the people they conference with and can learn from some one besides the teacher, which is refreshing to both students and teachers. They also help classes find all the resources necessary to do video conferencing. Sometimes, figuring out what you need is the hardest part. The company will schedule your conference and make sure you have everything necessary for the conference to move smoothly.
The most interesting thing they mentioned was Toontastic. It is an iPad application that allows students to make a video that tells a story. It sound so interesting because the emphasis is setting up a story with all the right elements, exposition, climax etc… Students can use their creativity to draw characters and settings (or pick them if they aren’t artistically inclined) and animate them by dragging them across the screen. The app has the student record the story while they are moving the character. This can be a great way to teach students how to build a story and could be used as a way to test if students read a novel—can they summarize the plot in the video? If my school has access to iPads, I would love to use this.
2.02.2011
Podcast Reflections #5
Driving Questions 2011: School as “Life Practice” with Ginger Lewman
Ginger had brought up a ton of great ideas in this podcast. She started off by saying how caught-up in their own lives middle schoolers can be. And as she said, they are kind of supposed to be that way, but they shouldn’t be so focused on their day to day life that they lose track of everything else. She gave the example of an extraordinary project her middle school class did. They drew a huge map of the world and made a dance to show the rise and fall of all the world’s civilizations. She presented the basic concept of the project and the students took control from there. They decided what they needed to learn to properly convey the world’s history, and they actually wanted to learn it. Then students were able to use their own unique gifts to help make the dance, participate, film and edit this huge project. It’s like she tricked them into learning (I mean this in a good way, of course). The other huge thing that stuck out to me was their schools Life Practice Model. The basic idea behind school is to prepare kids for the “real world” but how much do schools actually model this idea anymore. The work force has largely moved past the factor model that schools were based on, but schools are still stuck in this pattern. In the day-to-day activities of a classroom, this new model also gives students more control in the classroom. They have to power to start a chat to brainstorm ideas and share their working on a Google Doc with their teacher to receive guidance and support.
Ginger said student should learn the information they need in ways that will make them want to solve the worlds problems. I believe that everything students learn should be concretely cemented in real life. Whether it is a novel for English, or a Chemistry equation, students should know that this information can be useful to them in the real world. As Ginger said, “As a teacher, I shouldn’t be the source, I should be a resource.” It is critical that students understand the bigger picture of what they are learning. It isn’t all about getting the grades and moving on to the next level, it is about find ways to relate what you learn to the world as a whole.
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